The Rangers draft thread from that year is an outstanding read. With each pick leading up to #10, they are getting more and more psyched that one of Tarasenko or Fowler will fall to them. It's full-blown celebration after the 9th pick is in ...and then... *disaster*.

It's even funnier looking back, because at the time the notion was "LOL they spent a #10 pick on Ulf Samuelsson." McIlrath ended up being about 1/10th the player Ulf was.

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Imagine if the Rangers had a Fowler or a Tarasenko added to their roster for their 2012-2015 playoff runs. Sad.

Forgive me if this was mentioned in the previous posts, but Yegor Yakovlev was born one month before Nikita Zaitsev (both 1991 birth dates) and Zaitsev's KHL stats are far superior to Yakovlev's. So looking at what Zaitsev has done with the Leafs the past two seasons I am not sure that Yakovlev can put up those same numbers.

Forgive me if this was mentioned in the previous posts, but Yegor Yakovlev was born one month before Nikita Zaitsev (both 1991 birth dates) and Zaitsev's KHL stats are far superior to Yakovlev's. So looking at what Zaitsev has done with the Leafs the past two seasons I am not sure that Yakovlev can put up those same numbers.